No. 29.
Copy of Letter from Native Secretary to Colonel Gore Browne.

From the present combination among the Native tribes around this settlement, I feel it my duty to report to your Excellency that the present military force is not sufficient for the protection of this place. It is stated on good authority that the Ngatiruanui and Taranaki Tribes, mustering 1,200 warriors, are prepared to make an attack on the town, while William King and his immediate followers at least three hundred strong, will fight to the last at the Waitara. Independently of this combination, it is much to be apprehended—now that the Natives have buried the hatchet among themselves and yielded allegiance to King Potatau—that the powerful Waikatos, several thousand strong, and many of the numerous and disaffected tribes of the East Coast, in the vicinity of Poverty Bay, may be implicated in the present contest, with a view of asserting their national independence, and throwing page 144off their nominal allegiance to Her Majesty. This circumstance, together with the manifest symptoms of bad feeling recently displayed by the Natives, induces me to urge most respectfully on your Excellency the necessity of obtaining a stronger force without delay for the protection of the English settlements, and for vindicating Her Majesty's sovereignty over the Island.

I am of opinion that it would require a force of not less than five thousand men to defend the various isolated, and scattered settlements of the Northern Island.